Coated seeds will continue to be exempt from EPA regulation under FIFRA.

On Nov. 21, 2016, EPA won an important case for American farmers. EPA defended farmers’ rights to plant seeds coated with neonicotinoids – a class of insecticides that kill insects by affecting central nervous system. Coated seeds will continue to be exempt from EPA regulation under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) because of this court case.

WASHINGTON, DC — A California federal court ruled in favor of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and an industry coalition including CropLife America, the American Seed Trade Association, the Agricultural Retailers Association, the National Cotton Council of America, the American Soybean Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers and the National Corn Growers Association (Intervenors) in Anderson v. EPA, a lawsuit brought against EPA by a number of plaintiffs.

Editor’s Note: The Center for Food Safety, the American Bird Conservancy, the Pesticide Action Network North America, and the Pollinator Stewardship Council attempted to discredit EPA’s position before the court “by pointing out that” the court did “not have to rubber stamp an agency’s own characterization of its action.” In his ruling granting summary judgment in favor of EPA, Judge William Alsup tartly noted that his analysis upholding the agency’s position “is not a rubber stamp.”

A small arachnid so far only detected in Asian bees adds to the threats to the survival of honey producers

Varroa jacobsi, a mite or small arachnid that until now only mortally attacked Asian bees (Apis cerana), is rapidly developing the ability to parasitize European bees (also known as domestic bees or honey bees, Apis mellifera ). The first cases of Varroa jacobsi attacking European bee hives were documented in 2008 in Papua New Guinea and now a new study describes the genetic characteristics that are making it possible for this species of mite to become a new global threat for bees producing of honey.

A team of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their collaborators have established a strong link between honey bee health and the effects of diet on bacteria that live in the guts of these important insect pollinators.

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Bees fed fresh diets suffered fewer deaths, made better use of energy for growth, and had lower levels of gut pathogens such as Nosema ceranae, according to Anderson and co-authors University of Arizona graduate student Patrick Maes, ARS lab technician Brendon Mott, and Randy Oliver of Scientificbeekeeping.com.

Researchers found that some populations of Varroa jacobsoni mites are shifting from feeding and reproducing on Asian honeybees, their preferred host, to European honeybees, the primary species used for crop pollination and honey production worldwide. To bee researchers, it’s a grimly familiar story: V. destructor made the same host leap at least 60 years ago, spreading rapidly to become the most important global health threat to European honeybees.

While host-switching V. jacobsoni mites have not been found outside of Papua New Guinea, Purdue researchers Gladys Andino and Greg Hunt say vigilance is needed to protect European honeybees worldwide from further risk.

The sequencing of the MV genome revealed that it is close to slow bee paralysis virus which affects the front limbs of bees.

“The use of next generation gene sequencing techniques has led to a rapid increase in virus discovery, and is a powerful tool for investigating the enormous diversity of viruses out there,” said Gideon Mordecai, author of the study. “MV sequences were also detected in honey bees and Varroa from the same location, suggesting that MV can also infect other hymenopteran and Acari hosts.”